SHM's Resources on Antimicrobial Stewardship

Each year in the United States, at least two million people become infected with bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics and at least 23,000 people die as a direct result of these infections. Many more people die from other conditions that were complicated by an antibiotic-resistant infection.

The Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) is committed to promoting improved antibiotic prescribing behaviors among the nation’s hospitalists. As part of this commitment SHM launched the “Fight the Resistance” awareness campaign in 2015 in conjunction with the Get Smart campaign from the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC).

SHM’s Fight the Resistance campaign aims to facilitate culture change related to appropriate antibiotic prescribing with three key actions providers can take to stop antibiotic resistance:

Fight antimicrobial resistance
as a team.

Don’t overprescribe.

Rethink the antibiotic treatment
time course.

The Fight the Resistance Poster Campaign consists of a series of three posters. SHM encourages hospitalists and other hospitalist clinicians to display the posters in their hospitals to help promote the awareness and dialogue about improving antibiotic prescribing.

Project Stewardship Through Education of Providers In The INpatient Setting Implementation Guide aims to equip hospitalists with the ability to design and implement an antimicrobial stewardship intervention using evidence-based strategies.

Module one provides an introduction and overview of the best practices to optimize antibiotic use in three of the most commonly diagnosed conditions. The module reviews the evidence based best practices regarding the appropriate use of antibiotics in respiratory infections, urinary tract infections and skin and soft tissue infections with the goal of reducing the inappropriate prescribing for these commonly occurring conditions in the acute care setting.

Module two reviews the best practices for treating urinary tract infection. The module was developed to assist the learner in differentiating asymptomatic bacteriuria from UTI and differentiating complicated from uncomplicated UTI as well as how to select appropriate empiric therapy for uncomplicated UTI.

Module three reviews the best practices in acute bacterial skin infection. The module provides guidance regarding the correct diagnosis of cellulitis as well as the preferred therapy for purulent and non-purulent cellulitis. The module includes two case studies to assist the learner in identifying appropriate diagnosis and therapy selection.

Module four reviews the indications for antibiotic use for inpatient respiratory infections. The module assists the learner in applying appropriate diagnostic criteria for pneumonia to patients with respiratory symptoms. Additionally, the learning activity assists the learner with accurately risk stratifying patients according to their need for community acquired pneumonia (CAP) coverage or broader empiric therapy using evidence and guidelines. Finally, the module reviews what diagnostic tools and clinical criteria can be used to safely stop antibiotics being used to treat pneumonia.